Good afternoon. Welcome to PCI's webinar series. Today's presentation is Embodied Carbon, What Precast Pre-Stressed Concrete Producers Need to Know. This webinar is sponsored by Carbon Care Technologies. My name is Nicole Clout, Marketing Coordinator at PCI, and I will be your moderator for this session. Before I turn the controls over to your presenters for today, I have a few introductory items to note. Earlier today, we sent a reminder email to all registered attendees that included a handout of today's presentation. That handout for this webinar can also be found in the handout section of your webinar pane. If you cannot download the handout, please email PCI Marketing at marketing at pci.org. All attendee lines are muted. The GoToWebinar Toolbox has an area for you to raise your hand. If you raise your hand, you will receive a private chat message from me. If you have a question, please type it into the questions pane where I will be keeping track of them and will read them to the presenters during the Q&A period. Also, a pop-up survey will appear after the webinar ends. Today's presentation will be recorded and uploaded to the PCI eLearning Center. Questions related to specific products or publications will be addressed at the end of the presentation. PCI is a registered provider of AIA CES, but today's presentation does not contain content that has been endorsed by AIA. Today's presentation is non-CEU. Our presenters for today are Emily Lorenz. Emily Lorenz, PE, is an independent consultant in the areas of LCA, EPDs, PCRs, green building, and sustainability. She serves as an engineer in the areas of green structures and practices, energy efficiency, thermal properties, and moisture mitigation. Lorenz also specializes in building code and standards work and advocacy. Lorenz actively participates as Vice Chair of the Envelope Subcommittee, developing the commercial provisions of the 2024 International Energy Conservation Code, and as a voting member of several committees including the 2024 IECC Commercial Committee, the ASTM International Committee E60 on Sustainability, and the American Concrete Institute's Building Code Subcommittee on Sustainability. She also serves as the expert to ISO TC59, SC17, WG3 Environmental Declarations of Products, and as a consultant member to the Envelope Subcommittee of ASHRAE 90.1. Joining Emily is Allison Palmer. As the Senior Market Development Manager for CarbonCare Technologies, Allison Palmer drives CarbonCare's mission to reduce 500 million tons of annual carbon emissions from the concrete industry. In her role, Allison collaborates closely with designers and builders who seek to reduce the carbon impact of their building and infrastructure projects. Allison lives in Cleveland, Ohio, with her husband and Black Lab, and enjoys golfing when the weather permits. I will now hand the controls over so we can begin our presentation. Thanks, Nicole. I did notice a question about the handouts, and if you click on your control pane on the right, there's one that says handouts. If you expand that down, there are PDFs of both the presentation and a brochure in there as well. So all right, so we're going to start today. I was looking through the attendee list. It's so nice to see so many familiar names. I wish I could see your faces as well, but this will have to do today. We're going to talk about body carbon and what role that's playing in shaping codes and standards. Allison's then going to take us through a snapshot of embodied carbon projects and some strategies to reduce embodied carbon. So we're going to start, though, by launching a poll for all the attendees here. We want to know how familiar you are with embodied carbon. So if you could just please click on the button here, we'll give it a few seconds for everyone to chime in. Looks like we're getting a pretty good group of folks that are having a good understanding. We'll leave it open for just another second or two. And then here we go. So it looks like, you know, there's maybe a quarter of us that have either never heard of it or you've just started to, you know, realize that this might be a thing. We then have a pretty good amount who are either, you know, have more understanding or are really in the midst of it. So all right. Okay. So back to our presentation here. We thought we'd start by talking about why embodied carbon is even coming up in conversation anymore and or lately. And one of the biggest reasons are because the reason the owners are looking at it is because buildings contribute quite a bit to greenhouse gas emissions in the U.S. This pie chart here shows the different sectors and who contributes to greenhouse gas emissions. Now we've heard for some time, maybe the last 10 or 15 years, about how much buildings energy use during their operational phase is contributing to greenhouse gas emissions. And there's been a lot of focus on that in the architecture community, in the engineering community. The owners are aware of it and they're actively bringing down the amount of energy that's used during the use phase. And so when it comes to the building sector, what's now happening is that little orange piece of the pie, the 11% of greenhouse gas emissions that contribute to, excuse me, that 11% of the industry that's contributing to greenhouse gas emissions is now becoming a larger piece of the pie. And they know that if they're focusing on reducing these emissions due to operations that now the next big thing that they can tackle in terms of reducing greenhouse gas emissions are embedded in the materials themselves that we use to build. But let's start with discussing what embodied carbon is. So we know that carbon itself and, you know, people just use this abbreviated term of embodied carbon. What does that mean? Well, we know carbon is an element. We know that it forms lots of things. And we know that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas. And greenhouse gases are the ones that contribute to the warming of the climate. So greenhouse gas equivalents, those, that's a way that we use to measure the different, it's a way that, it's an indicator that we use to combine all the different greenhouse gases into one measure, measure of global warming potential. And then of course, if it's embodied carbon, it means that it's contained within our products. So embodied carbon is a measure within our products. So embodied carbon is really just a shortened term that the industry is using to talk about those greenhouse gases that are emitted during the manufacture of our products that are considered embodied in our products. And we'll explain that in better detail as we go forward. So when I look for a formal technical definition of what embodied carbon is, the best one that I've been able to find thus far is in this ISO standard. And the ISO standard is for carbon footprinting. But what it says is that it's basically the sum of all of the greenhouse gas emissions and any removals, so carbonation or carbon sequestration, in a product system expressed in carbon dioxide equivalents. So we're taking into account all the greenhouse gases. It's based on a life cycle assessment. And we're looking at the single impact category of climate change. A lot of terms thrown in there, a lot of terms that are used interchangeably. So we have heard embodied carbon referred to as, out in the literature, as a carbon footprint. We've heard it referred to in terms of carbon dioxide emissions only, or these carbon dioxide equivalents where you're taking into account all of the greenhouse gases, or of course greenhouse gas emissions. So all of those terms play a role. And unfortunately, in the marketplace, there isn't a standardized way that people use these terms. From a technical perspective and from a LCA perspective, this definition that I have up on the screen is about as succinct and as clear as we make it. But when people say the term embodied carbon, it can mean lots of different things. So one of the first things you want to do when you have an owner or a client come to you and ask you about embodied carbon is find out what they think that it means. And in terms of a producer's perspective, what is embodied carbon? So the dotted line we have here is, the dotted line there is the boundary of our system that we're looking at when we're talking about embodied carbon of precast. Now, what we would like is that the embodied carbon take into account all of the lifecycle stages. Unfortunately, when it comes to a product, especially like precast, that is engineered to order, it's really difficult to estimate and calculate the embodied carbon of your products before they leave the gate, because you would have to do an analysis for every piece and every application for every function. You'd have to know how long that piece was going to be in the structure. You'd have to know what the end of life was going to be. Is it going to be demolished? Is it going to be reused? And so as a shortcut, and as a minimum, we look at this cradle to gate scope. So the A1 part of our analysis, where our boundary is drawn, is all of our upstream materials and resources that we use. So whether those are raw materials, such as cement, aggregate, rebar, insulation, all of those materials that are coming from an outside manufacturer. And all of the energy also that we bring in either, you know, it comes in through the lines, or, you know, it's trucked in in terms of like maybe propane or natural gas depends at the fuels we use in our equipment. All of those components that are eventually going to make up or be used to create precast concrete. Those are all considered in the A1 phase of a life cycle. The A2 phase is the transport. So we have to get all those materials to our plant and those impacts are measured and reported in the A2 phase. And then whatever happens within the boundary of your plant itself, that's considered the A3 phase. So when you add up these three life cycle stages, A1, A2, and A3, that gives you the cradle to gate assessment of precast. And so when we're doing our analysis to figure out embodied carbon, we're looking at all of these different components and pieces that go in. And we're doing a bit of a mass balance because we know that all of the energy or all the materials that come in have to go out of the plant, either in terms of products or waste. So we that's how we draw the boundary. And to get into this a little bit more and how that converts to embodied carbon. So all of our raw materials, cement, aggregate, rebar, strand, insulation, all of those raw materials, they require energy to be manufactured or dug out of the ground or some way processed before they even can get on the road to come to your plant. So there's energy required to manufacture those materials. In some cases, there are also, for some materials, greenhouse gases formed during the manufacture of a material. When it comes to precast, I think everyone knows that cement is one of those products. So when cement is manufactured, not only does it take a really large amount of fuel to heat the kiln up hot enough, but there's also the chemical reaction that occurs. And when calcination occurs, CO2 is released. So in the case of cement, we have the energy that's used to create the cement that gives off greenhouse gases. And we also have the greenhouse gases due to that chemical reaction. Okay, so those are all of our materials in the A1 phase. Of course, you know, we have all the energy that we're using in the plant itself. Any fuel to transport those materials to your site, so whether they're trucked there by tractor trailer, or they're shipped by barge, or whether they come by train, those transport services require fuel to transport the raw materials. And then within the plant itself, obviously, you're using energy. You're heating, you're curing, you're cutting, you're doing all sorts of things that require energy. And so what happens is, because especially in the U.S., our energy sources are not all clean. Many of them come from fossil fuel sources. When that energy is used, it emits greenhouse gases. And so those greenhouse gases are summed, added up for all of these different pieces and parts. And we use those greenhouse gases to estimate how much embodied carbon is in our product. So what that looks like from a very simplified perspective is that within that boundary that we have for our plant, we take all of the greenhouse gases that are released due to the energy use at all the different parts of the A1, A2, and A3. We add that to the greenhouse gases that are released during chemical reaction of the materials we use. And basically, we get an embodied carbon or greenhouse gas value for the product. Typically, when you're doing an analysis like this, you're doing it on an annual basis. So you're looking at your plant operations for a 12-month, 12-consecutive-month period. You're taking all the materials used, all the energy used, and then all the product that goes out. And you can calculate your embodied carbon or your greenhouse gas emissions per ton of product. That's how it's done for the precast. Okay. So with that lengthy explanation of what embodied carbon is, we're going to do another quick poll here. And what we want to know is, have you been asked yet for embodied carbon data? It could be specific to your plant. It could be just industry data that people are asking for. It could be as simple as, you know, has anyone asked you to provide an EPD for one of your products? Okay, it looks like the voting is slowing down a little bit here. So I'll go ahead and close the poll and then share the results with everyone. So it looks like it's a little bit of a mixed bag. So, you know, there's some interest probably you're not necessarily seeing it per se, but yeah. So where you're likely to be seeing it, if you're seeing it at all, is there's, and we're going to discuss the different clients and owners and requirements where they may be asking you for these embodied carbon numbers. But you're going to see it in public projects a lot more or those forward thinking owners. So just to give you a real quick snapshot of what it would look like if you ever had to calculate the embodied carbon in your plant, what that means in real life, like in your plant, what does that mean that you would have to provide? And this is just a very simplified chart. But all the materials that you use, so obviously, we use a lot more materials than just those listed here. But you need all of the materials. Typically, we do that by weight. So the ton of all the different materials, and then your distance transported by the different modes of transportation. That largely has to do with the fact that our rail and barge transportation is much more efficient. And so we want to, it's a lot fewer greenhouse gas emissions by those modes of transportation. And so when we're figuring out that A2 component, we need to do that for these different materials. And then of course, we would also ask for the energy use in your plant and your product quantities, the amount of product that's heading out the plant gate. So just to summarize, you need basically the material quantities and the distance traveled for all the different components, all your different fuels, and then the product and the waste. And what we do with that is we take all of those and we create a life cycle assessment so that we can report out in an EPD or an environmental product declaration what the global warming potential is. And that's where you're going to find this embodied carbon number for precast. So if you've seen the industry average EPDs that exist right now for all PCI producers can use these, we have three different EPDs that are out right now. That's for a whole industry average, it's for structural, architectural, or architectural with insulation. And if someone's asking for the embodied carbon number, you will see it where that orange arrow is right there in the front row. They're asking you for the global warming potential. And you'll notice if you look at these numbers, so first the unit is kilograms of CO2e. So those are your equivalent carbon dioxide emissions. The reason they report that way is because some greenhouse gases are much more potent when it comes to warming the climate. And so those are factored and multiplied to make them equivalent to the warming provided by carbon dioxide. That's the unit for our embodied carbon and global warming potential category. The three different categories, you see they're split out there for the different life cycle stages. So our A1, our upstream materials, that's where the bulk of the embodied carbon in precast comes from, is the raw material supply, all those individual components that actually go into the precast. Transport is pretty low, makes sense, right? Most of the time we're buying materials that are fairly close to our plant, unless we have a special job that requires a super crazy specific aggregate from a quarry in a crazy place. So for the most part, we're using materials that are close to the plant. So the transport number is pretty low. And then in the plants themselves, the number is also fairly low. So most of the embodied carbon comes just from the materials that we use in our product. All right, so now we're going to get into where you may see these embodied carbon related provisions. We're going to touch on three different areas, the codes and standards, policy work, and then stakeholder initiatives. So the codes and standards, as you will not be surprised necessarily, the codes and standards, as with any codes and standards, they move a little bit slower, they tend to be more conservative. And so when you see provisions in codes and standards, they're usually not the most difficult for a producer to meet because they've been through the consensus process. And there's been a lot of horse trading to get everyone happy when it comes to those provisions. So of course, lead and grade globes, they're a little bit more on the cutting edge when it comes to requirements. But even some of the requirements in those rating systems are not as difficult to achieve as some of the legislation that we'll talk about a little bit later. But I want to point out, there's a couple of different ways that you're going to see these embodied carbon provisions. The first and kind of the lowest bar, the easiest, is just in the disclosure provisions. And a lot of the time you're seeing that already with any lead project that you've worked on. So if you've worked on a lead project and they've asked you to submit an EPD, that's considered a disclosure requirement. So in the International Green Construction Code, they use AFTRA 189.1 as the base standard. And they have these two options, the disclosure requiring EPDs, and then a more performance option for a full LCA. If you have to meet any of these requirements, you'll likely find them in your project specifications, or in the case of the IGCC, they do have a map, like with all the I-codes, where it shows whether there's state and local adoption. But the IGCC hasn't been picked up by that many states or jurisdictions just yet. And the next step, and the next phase we're seeing in these types of provisions, is to move towards creating some sort of a baseline and then requiring a percent improvement from that for these embodied carbon provisions. But those are all in discussions now, like in the 189.1. They haven't yet been implemented into any versions. So just to give you an idea of what these types of provisions look like, although you've probably seen them, the disclosure provisions look like this, where you just have to report, a project is required to provide EPDs for a minimum number of products on a project. And so you've probably seen something like this. This is basically just the prescriptive method of a lead requirement in a green code or standard. And then the more robust analysis to figure out the embodied carbon is through a full lifecycle assessment. And you'll know in these codes and standards, there has been increasingly a focus just on the embodied carbon and greenhouse gas emissions. But in these codes and standards, they do look at a full range of environmental impacts. In ASHRAE 189.1, there's actually five different environmental impact categories that people can try to reduce. One of those has to be global warming potential. So one of them has to be the embodied carbon, but the others can be some of the others such as acidification potential or reduction of smog formation or some of the other typical LCA environmental impacts. So within codes and standards, you're going to see two basic buckets. You're going to see either you have to provide an EPD, they don't necessarily care that it's product or project specific, they just want to see something or they're going to require that you do a full analysis or LCA. That's typically what we're seeing right now from codes and standards. When we get into policy work, these buy clean bills are cropping up all over the place. And part of the reason for that is that there's this sense of urgency for the public, for environmental groups, for just our politicians to reduce the environmental impact to slow the climate change, reduce these embodied carbon and the greenhouse gas emissions. And so it's partly in response to trying to quickly make a change, quickly try to make a reduction. And frankly, for any of us who have ever been involved in codes and standards work, we know it's just slow. It takes three to six years at a minimum and then it has to be adopted. And so this policy work is much, much faster to get things implemented. And so that's why we're seeing, partly why we're seeing such an uptick in the number of these public procurement or buy clean bills. So these are being proposed at a state level. They're being proposed on a local level. You will obviously find them in your project specifications or just knowing that in a local area, you have to abide by the local laws and ordinances. And the most famous one probably that's out there related to concrete is the Marin County Code. And so what they did was they did a survey and they have pretty much what I would call two performance or two paths that you can meet the requirements. There's the very prescriptive method where they've limited the cement content that you can use either on a mix or a project basis, or they have a more performance method where you have a embodied carbon limit. And for a given mix or a given project, you may be able to go up a little bit on some if you come down in other areas. And so they have a very simple table where they list the amount of, and these are what you would find in your EPD. These are the GWP numbers that you're allowed in terms of per cubic yard. You'll note that there's differences related to compressive strength and related to whether it's a normal weight or a lightweight mix. And that has to do with the baseline of, obviously for higher strength mixes, you're going to need, most likely going to need more cement at some point. And so that's why those cement limits or the embodied carbon numbers go up with compressive strength. Likewise, the lightweight has embodied carbon due to the manufacture of those lightweight aggregates as well. So if you see some of these provisions, first of all, you should be paying attention to local ordinances or state ordinances to see if some of these requirements are coming through. Your regional organizations are probably already keeping track of them. And you'll need to know with these types of provisions, you have to move to more of a, you can't rely on the industry average EPD anymore. Then you need to rely on a plant specific or a project specific EPD where it's only the GWP of your product so that you can show that you're meeting these requirements. All right, and the last category of provisions we're seeing are what I'm calling stakeholder initiatives. And these are the ones that are usually really lofty, but they're also posed to make the biggest impact in terms of reduction. So we've heard of the Architecture 2030 probably, their focus really has been on operational energy. And if you're familiar with that at all, you know that that was a challenge issued by the Architecture 2030 organization that was then adopted by the AIA. So the AIA members made a commitment to reducing the operational energy and thus the greenhouse gas emissions related to the use phase of our buildings. There's now a similar challenge that has been issued. The challenge was issued by the Carbon Leadership Forum in Washington State. And it was adopted by SEI, the Structural Engineers Institute of ASCE. And they're calling it the SE 2050 challenge. And what they're doing is they're tracking the embodied carbon or the global warming potential of structural materials. So what can SEI members and structural engineers control? They can control the GWP of the structural materials. So that's their focus. The website is up there. You will find this potentially in project specifications, but more likely you're going to notice it because there is a pledge from a structural engineering firm. So when we see this challenge being adopted, I think there are over 80 firms now that have signed on to this SE 2050 challenge. And what the firms themselves have decided what they're going to do is figure out a way to reduce the embodied carbon in the projects that they're working on by creating a plan. They're going to become more invested and active in both the beginning parts of the project where they can have more influence and control and really be a leader and advocate for reducing embodied carbon in structural materials. And then they're also, if they've signed on to this challenge, they're also going to share the information by submitting data to a database, to a central database. So the database has been formed, it is accepting data and firms are beginning to put projects into the database. And what this is doing is one, it's obviously raising awareness among structural engineering firms, where is the embodied carbon located in my structure, but it's also helping them reduce a global warming potential. And also, eventually it could be used to create a benchmark for different types of buildings so that they can issue challenges related to reductions and embodied carbon. All right, so with that, I'm going to hand it over to Alison. Yep, perfect. So just want to provide a snapshot of embodied carbon projects first. So there are currently 335 active projects valued at over $13 billion in the United States. So essentially owners and developers are really calling on structural engineers to start designing buildings and specifying products in their buildings that are low carbon and calling for embodied carbon reductions in their projects. So interestingly enough, between 2020 and 2021, the spec requests for embodied carbon and or carbon cure grew about 12%. So this is a trend we're only going to continue to see grow as the green market trend continues onward. So why now? There is a growing movement to reduce emissions from buildings and construction as you've probably gathered by now. Buildings generate 40% of the world's annual greenhouse gas emissions and the world's building stock is actually expected to double by the year 2060. So this means we're building an entire New York City equivalent every month for the next 40 years. So with all that new construction on the horizon, we have to ask ourselves, how is that going to impact the climate? And while the majority of the initiatives have been focused on operational carbon, there hasn't been much focus on the embodied carbon element of this because we can do things like retroactively, retrofit buildings to be more operationally efficient. There's nothing we can do to turn back the time on the embodied carbon footprint of the building. Once those materials are put into place, there's nothing we can do to turn back the clock. So it's really important to take strategic measures ahead of the time in the building design phase to get ahead of the curve and reduce that carbon footprint as soon as possible. And half of new construction emissions, sorry, I took a long breath there. I'm like, and half of new construction emissions are actually expected to come from embodied carbon. So between now and 2050, the carbon emissions of new construction will be split between operational and embodied carbon evenly. And lastly, like Emily mentioned, there are these challenges and mission alignment among these firms to reach net zero embodied carbon by 2040. So green building as a growing producer opportunity. So this is where you can really capitalize on this green markets trend. High performance in green buildings are really in high demand. It's a really hot topic right now. And being at the forefront of this shift in green building design is only going to be more advantageous for yourself. So like Emily mentioned, various government efforts and regulation mandates are really driving the force of green building in the US and Canada markets and global green building materials market is expected to grow by 9% over the next five years. Only going on the upward trajectory here. How can you help reduce concrete's carbon impact? Communicate your commitment to embodied carbon reduction throughout the communication supply chain early and often. So much of the time, we all have the same goals of reducing carbon on our projects, and we're just not effectively communicating amongst the various teams on how we can do that. Really advocating and recommending designers specify for strengths or what they need, use SEMs, low carbon cement, recycled aggregates when available, all great options for reducing the carbon footprint of the mixes. But lastly, the biggest barrier is those unnecessary prescriptive specifications that really limit sustainability innovation. So those minimum cement contents, maximum supplementary cementitious contents and max water to cement ratios are outdated practices that originated from a time ago when quality control standards were just not as robust as they are today. The NRMCA and Structural Engineers Institute recommend that engineers start removing these types of specifications and specify strength. So our team, my team really advocates for performance-based specifications when we are out there promoting this type of initiative. and lastly, if you are a producer, you can submit carbon cure. Wherever possible, so how does carbon care fit into the picture of reducing embodied carbon? So we've developed a technology that injects captured CO2 into the concrete during mixing. Just like an admixture once introduced into the concrete, a chemical reaction takes place where the CO2 is converted into a mineral and permanently embedded in the concrete. So, this process not only proves the strength of our concrete, but allows us to reduce our cement content, the material with the highest carbon impact by about 4 to 6%, up to 10% without impacting any fresh or hardened properties. So, ultimately, it's the same concrete being delivered to the project, just with a reduced carbon footprint. So, it's an easy integration and installation of our technology. It only takes about a day and a half for us to come in and retrofit our technology onto existing operations. So, our software is integrated with the plant's batch operation system. So, the metering and injection of CO2 is happening at the same time as other processes in the batching sequence. So, it's important to note that there is no impact to any cycle times, therefore no impact to any construction schedule. So, as long as the systems turn on for any given load, the system will calculate the precise amount of CO2 to inject into the load based off the cement content and the quantity of the material. So, the CO2 enters the mix looking like dry ice or snow, warms up to room temperature, and then turns into a gas. And once this happens, it's like a magnetic attraction that occurs between the calcium and the CO2. So, these 2 molecules want to bind together and return to their original state of calcium carbonate, aka limestone. So, all we're doing at the end of the day is creating nano-sized limestone particles that increase the overall strength of our mixes and allow us to reduce that cement content. So, like I mentioned, the CO2 enters the mix looking like dry ice or snow. And naturally, a lot of people ask, is this going to have an impact on the temperature of the concrete? And the answer is no, simply because there isn't enough to make a difference. So, like I mentioned, we're delivering a precise dose of CO2 into the mix during mixing, and that is about 1 pound of CO2 per cubic yard of concrete. So, that's about 4,000 pounds of material. That 1 pound of CO2 just isn't going to have an impact on temperature. It'd be like throwing a handful of ice cubes into the back of a freight truck and expecting it to cool off. It's just not going to happen. So, to maintain production schedules and production volume, the main thing pre-casters are looking for is release time. So, looking at this graph here on the left, this is an example of a producer with a release of 3,500 psi at 10 hours. The black is their control, so what they've done historically. And the orange bar is that same mix, but with a 3.5% reduction of cement and CO2 added in. So, we're still hitting that same 3,500 psi for a release at 10 hours. And then the same sort of example on the right of the screen is a graph that is a different producer that had a target of 4,000 psi at 15 hours. Again, we were able to achieve their target release time and strength, but with a 5% cementitious reduction and CO2 added in. So, maintaining that same strength. And this is where the real value of our technology comes in, especially in relation to carbon savings here. So, optimizing the mixes, removing the material that has the highest carbon impact. So, the addition of CO2 and reduction of 4 to 6, up to 10% of cement has no impact on the fresh and hardened properties of the concrete. In fact, if we didn't tell you CO2 was being used, you would not be able to tell. It has the same set time, workability, pumpability, temperature, finishing, no impact on air content used with any admixture, aggregate, SEM, or cement. Hardened properties like freeze-thaw, pH, density, durability, color, and texture are also unaffected. So, just to reiterate, CO2 has a neutral impact because there's very little of it, and we're just turning it into nano-sized limestone particles. So, some of the benefits for precast production gives you a competitive advantage. Like we touched on in the beginning, there is a growing shift in the design community for green building products. So, attracting those types of projects and getting your low-carbon concrete initiatives, being able to supply those types of projects is only going to give you a competitive advantage in the long run. A return on your investment. Cement reductions equaled reduced costs, equaled carbon removal credits. There's no upfront capital expenditure required because 1 pound of CO2 is much cheaper than 1 pound of cement. And lastly, the sustainability impact. So, on average, 34 pounds per cubic yard reduction of the carbon footprint on average. So, you get to leave a legacy behind and showcase to your community what you're doing to not only build upon your brand and really come along with the shift that's happening, but hire people that want to come work for a place that's doing right for the environment, showcase to the community what you're doing, and make sure that you're doing the right thing for the community. To bring these initiatives forward, capitalizing on the sustainability, branding, and messaging. So, wrapping up here, what can CarbonCure bring to you as a concrete producer? So, the opportunity to bid on embodied carbon and or CarbonCure specified projects, like I mentioned, is a $13 billion opportunity. So, we have access to Dodge Data Analytics, which allows us to do really in-depth market analysis to see which types of projects are coming down the pipelines, which firms are a part of SC 2050, and what projects do they have in their pipeline that we can deliver to you as a lead. Brand differentiator and giving you a competitive edge, like we mentioned, that positive ROI. Project information, not only focused on the ones that call out specifically embodied carbon and CarbonCure, but also projects that we've identified that could be close to you that we could potentially reach out to those architects and try and get the specification changed if we get in early enough. We have a great track record of going in and meeting with these project teams to not only allow the use of CarbonCure on their projects, but prioritize the use of CarbonCure on their projects. And we have a lot of relationships with these architects and engineers throughout the entire country that are really advocating for getting CarbonCure on their projects wherever possible. So, to learn more, you can read our ebook, Three Ways Precast Producers Can Profit from Sustainability. It does a really nice job of going a little bit more in depth than what we covered here today. Or come meet us in Kansas City at the Precast Show, March 3rd through 5th, Booth 1845. Really look forward to seeing you there and appreciate your time today. Now I'll answer any questions that have come through. Thank you, Allison and Emily for a great and informative presentation. We will now start the Q&A portion of our presentation. We do have a few questions that came in. How do you figure out distance traveled for water when it is city water? Oh, okay. That's a good question. For city water, you don't have to figure out distances, so, you know, occasionally you may, depending on, you know, where you are, you might have to bring in water, but usually, no, there's no, there's no distance for water. Sounds great. Thank you. How does Precast compare to other building materials? In terms of embodied carbon? So, that's a tricky question. So, we don't compare Precast concrete to other materials unless it's on a full LCA basis. So, I'm going to actually go, sorry, Nicole, I'm going to take back the, yeah, I'm going to go back on the slide to look at our scope. So, if you think about it, the way the standards are set up is that you are only allowed to compare embodied carbon of products within a given product category. So, if you think about it, this orange box that's Precast concrete manufacturing, what do we do in there? We do a lot of stuff, right? We do batching, but we also do curing. We may be cutting strand or bending bars. We are curing, there may be some architectural finishes that have to happen, and there's all that stuff that happens so that when that Precast component leaves the plant gate, it's a finished piece that can be just set into place. And to look at the closest material that people may want to compare to, though they shouldn't, when the ReadyMix leaves the plant gate, it's just fresh concrete. It hasn't been formed. It hasn't been cured. There's no reinforcement inside of it. So, at that plant gate position, it's not a comparison. They have different functions at that point. They have different impacts because of what it took to manufacture them. Now, if you want to take a Precast concrete building and a reinforced concrete building and just look at the full life cycle, PCI did do a full LCA comparative assertion on structural steel, Precast concrete, and cast-in-place concrete structures with five different envelope materials. They looked at it for the full life cycle. And the bottom line was, there isn't a huge difference between the environmental impact of the different materials. So, if you're looking at the full life cycle, there isn't that big of a difference. So, what you really need to focus on is optimizing and reducing your material impact as much as possible because the performance is going to, you know, it's going to do well once it's in place. And we don't really have impact over that. So, hope that answers the question. Perfect. Thank you. We do have another question. Have you used a carbon cure on concrete with SCM specifically slag? Yes. Yes, we can be used with any admixture, aggregate, SCM, cement, all really positive results from all those types of materials. Fly ash, slag, super plasticizers, all of it. Sounds great. Our next question is, how does carbon cure account for transportation of the industry CO2 to the Precast plant? That's a great question. So, we have a LCA program that we use as well. So, depending on where the gas source is coming from, we'll know exactly how to quantify that into the mix designs that our customers use. So, they upload their mix designs onto a portal called MyCarbonCure, and it takes all of those calculations into consideration. When we go to know what they're going to produce with those mix designs, we can see how much carbon is going to be saved with those mixes being used. So, on average, we reduce 25 pounds per yard. So, that is factored into where the CO2 source is coming from, the cement reductions we're taking, the CO2 that is sequestered. So, all of that plays a factor into the reductions, but on average, we save about 25 pounds per cubic yard. Thank you. Our next question is, have you seen use of carbon cure for tilt-up concrete panels cast on sites? We sure have. There was a project that was done by one of our producers in IMI in Lebanon, Tennessee. It was the first tilt-up project in the U.S., and it's on our website under reference projects. If you care to take a closer look at the project, it was pretty cool. Sounds good. What are the resources of the CO2 provided by CarbonCure with their system for pre-casters? So, it's a separate contract with the CO2. So, CarbonCure doesn't capture, produce, or sell the CO2 right now. So, this is done by companies like Praxair, Air Liquide, Airgas. So, they will come in and install the tank on site, and you will work through them for any sort of maintenance that goes on with the tank itself. What we do is license the technology to you. So, we will ship you the valve box and control box and discharge hoses, everything that would need to get the system up and running. We can come in and install the technology ourselves or walk you through it virtually. And then we have a technical services and support team that will come in and test all of the mixes that you'd like to use CarbonCure in, make sure we're seeing that strength gain, verify and validate the technology, and then go forth with a cement reduction from there. And then my team comes over and teaches you how to market and sell and do specification development. Wonderful. Thank you. We did receive a few more questions. Our next question is, how is the impact on mechanical strength? No, no impact. I mean, there's positive impact all around on strength, but as far as it's concerned, as far as it's concerned, is essentially you would be receiving the same mix. If you wanted 4000 PSI mix, you'd be getting 4000 PSI mix. There's really no difference. Sounds good. Our next question is, how do the nanoparticles supply enough advantage to see a real increase in strength when looking at statistical data deviations that are already present in mixed strength variations? It's a little bit of a complicated question. This is probably more of a question for our technical services and support team who handles more of the mixed design questions and looks at all of that sort of data. But all I can say is what's happening at a chemistry standpoint is these nanosized limestone particles are essentially the calcium carbonate that comes from the limestone that is in the cement. So, by creating those nanosized limestone particles, we're able to see that strength gain and then reduce that cement. Perfect. Thank you. Allison, this is another question for you. Earlier, you mentioned that there are 335 active embodied carbon projects. Which states or local bodies are leading in mandating this? It's really every single state. A lot of more of the, I would say, California and New York are really leading the charge on adopting the low-carbon, embodied carbon types of specifications. But that's not to say that there isn't some, you know, sprinkled throughout the majority of the country. But I would say more of the focus is on the low-carbon, embodied carbon types of specifications. But that's not to say that there isn't some, you know, sprinkled throughout the majority of the country. But I would say more of the focus is, that I've seen the concentration is on those states that have really put forth those initiatives. You know, California, New York, Chicago had some too. So, states like that. Yeah, I saw some, I'll just jump into. I saw Denver recently pass something. And because they now exist out there, what's happening is that even smaller jurisdictions, they just, they can pick up that and kind of replicate it in their own community without having to necessarily do the homework to develop that, which can be good and bad. It depends. But we're seeing it, yeah, all over the place. Sounds good. Our next question is, how are structural engineers who are participating in SC 2050 planning to achieve the goal of net zero embodied carbon structural systems by 2050? Yeah, so they have a number of resources that are available on that website. The secret is, they're not going to be able to reduce it 100% without buying some carbon credits. They just, there are some materials that, and even if you, you know, use as little material as possible, and even if you reduce your energy as much as possible, we're not, we can't move our society that quickly to reduce to 100% carbon. So, they're relying on carbon credits to get to zero. That's one of the proposed pathways to get to zero by 2050. Sounds great. Thank you. We have enough time for one more question. Where can we find more information on embodied carbon? So, the SC 2050 website is a good place to start. There are a number of resources out there. I know that probably Allison and her group have given a lot of talks. I've given a lot of talks. The local PCI regions have done a lot of work in this space. There's also many of the EPDs are available on the website and PCI has some really good resources as well that have been around for a while. There's a designer's notebook on sustainability that would be worth checking out. And I'm sure I can speak for Allison and myself. If you need help being pointed in the right direction for something, just reach out. We're happy to help you find some more information. The carbon leadership forum as well is one of my personal favorite resources on embodied carbon. They have a couple different ebooks you can download and read. So, that does a really good job of explaining it as well. Yeah, I can't believe I forgot to say that. That's a good point. Perfect. Thank you. That concludes our Q&A portion of today's presentation. On behalf of PCI, I'd like to thank Emily and Allison for a great presentation. If you have any further questions about today's webinar, please email marketing at pci.org. Thank you again and have a great day and stay safe. Thank you.

Embodied Carbon

Precast Pre-Stressed Concrete Producers

LCA

EPDs

PCRs

Sustainability

Low Carbon Building Materials

Greenhouse Gas Emissions

Life Cycle Assessments